Another anti-science attack on Mann fails – but the lies continue

Once again legal action by climate change deniers/contrarian/cranks has failed. In the US attempts by the American Tradition Institute, a climate change denial think tank, to obtain personal emails and documents from the University of Virginia. These documents belong to well known climate scientist Michael Mann and the court action was part of a fishing expedition by climate change deniers to repeat the “climategate” scandal. To obtain emails from which cherry-picked material could be used in the ongoing campaign to discredit climate scientists. See University of Virginia prevails against climate science attack groupfor further information on this case.

But Michael Mann is certainly the scientist that the climate change deniers/contrarians/cranks love to hate. Just recently I was assured by a local climate change deniers/contrarian/crank that Michael Mann had been thoroughly discredited. That his so-called Hockey Stick image, which had appeared in the 2nd to last IPCC review (AR3) had been dropped from the most recent IPPC review (AR4). This local denier/contrarian/crank asserted, for example:

“You’re going to have to come up with someone other than Mann, to be taken seriously.”

This attempt to discredit Mann and his work is a lie – but its not a new lie. It’s one I had dealt with almost three years ago in my postClimate change deniers’ tawdry manipulation of “hockey sticks”. I am repeating that post here, with slight amendments. Hopefully this will at least lead to some climate change sceptic who may have accepted that lie getting some of the real facts.

The “infamous, discredited” hockey stick

The charge is:

“Mann’s hockey stick has been thoroughly discredited and the IPCC has dropped it from its reports.”

But it’s simple enough to check the IPCC reports – they are on-line for all to see. If you do check you will find this figure below in the 2007 reports. The original data from Mann (MBH 1999) is included with, of course, more recent data. Here is the reference for anyone doubting my claim –Figure 6.10, page 467, Chapter 6: Palaeoclimate,The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), WG I The Physical Science Basis.

National research Council report vindicates Mann

In this paper Mann was responding to suggestions made by the National Research Council in its report Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years. This thorough and rigorous investigation formed part of US House of Representatives Committee hearings on Mann’s “hockey stick” figure arising from criticisms made by climate change sceptics. It is very authoritative.

Anyone who has ever had their work reviewed knows that a reviewer worth their salt will always find your weaknesses and suggest amendments, even though they endorse your work. And climate changer deniers/contrarians/cranks have hunted out the criticisms, taken them out of context and are usually well versed in those cherry-picked quotes. They must be repeated ad nauseum in those unreliable books deniers rely on as sources. But the fact is the National Research Council report basically supported Mann’s findings:

“The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes both additional large-scale surface temperature reconstructions and pronounced changes in a variety of local proxy indicators, such as melting on ice caps and the retreat of glaciers around the world, which in many cases appear to be unprecedented during at least the last 2,000 years.”

In fact the NRC produced their own “hockey stick,” using more than just Mann’s data, in the report (see figure below):

Lord Monckton’s lies about the “hockey Stick”

These false assertions on the “hockey stick” graph are, unfortunately, very common. It’s one bit of mudslinging that has found purchase with most deniers repeating the lie. Even some sceptics believe the story.

Lord Mockton has been a prolific propagator of this lie. He even appears in the infamous “climategate” emails saying of the “hockey stick”: “the US National Academy of Sciences has described as having “a validation skill not significantly different from zero”. In plain English, this means the graph was rubbish.”

Problem is – search through the NRC report and you just won’t find those words (“a validation skill not significantly different from zero”). Nevertheless this allegation has been repeated innumerable numbers of times in conservative newspapers and websites. Some of these also claim that the IPCC had abandoned the data (see for example the policy Brief from the Commonwealth foundation – Climate & Penn State – demanding a McCarthyist-style investigation of Mann). But even Mockton acknowledges that “the UN continues to use the defective graph.”

I guess it just makes a good story so these conservative sources tack it on. But where is the integrity in that?

I think the amount of time you guys spend trying to defend the actual science sort of says it all really. Have any of you brainwashed, new age greenies figured out that the Carbon Trading Exchange is owned by the same people that own the oil companies? And was set up by the same people that set up Enron? Almost every scientists that supports their phony science and lies is on the pay roll one way or another- I presume you clowns are too?

I think the amount of time you guys spend trying to defend the actual science sort of says it all really.

Well, people attack the actual science. So the good guys have to defend the actual science. Sticking up for reality is tough but someone’s got to do it.

<i.Have any of you brainwashed, new age greenies figured…

Nope. NASA are not brainwashed, new age greenies.
Not is the CSIRO or NOAA or the U.S Navy or the AAAS or the American Physical Society or the Royal Society or the British Antarctic Survery or any other scientific community on the planet.

Almost every scientists that supports their phony science…

The mantra of every crank science denier out there. You don’t have a clue how to spot real science from pseudoscience. There is no spooky-wooky global scientific conspiracy out there. Such a thing is physically impossible.
We really did make it to the moon.

It astonishes me that you people love the hockey stick so much, like it actually means something. Every graph you show above has at least 10 hockey sticks in them. And when you look back several thousand years the number of hockey sticks is in the hundreds. Yet for some bizarre reason, Manns hockey stick is the one you love the most. It must be sort of ‘special’ to people like you, you know, people of the faith. Lol!

Klem – do you not see the glaring contradiction when you say “Every graph you show above has at least 10 hockey sticks in them. . . . Yet for some bizarre reason, Manns hockey stick is the one you love the most.”

The fact is that Mann’s work is what the climate change deniers/contrarians/sceptics/cranks obsess about. He is the one they are continually smearing. And it is his work they have lied about.

Poor confused klem. He thinks is about “you people”.
It’s not.
It’s about NASA-not “you people”.
Spot the difference. The rest of us can.
It’s about the CSIRO and NOAA and the U.S Navy and the AAAS and the American Physical Society and the Royal Society and the British Antarctic Survery and every other scientific community on the planet.
Poor klem.

Dr Mann’s 1998 study was ground breaking and insightful. As with any first attempt in a new research area it was flawed, but further and ongoing work by Dr Mann and other scientists continue to develop and support the original insights provided by that first study using multi-proxy temperature reconstructions.

In short it was and remains good science. Nothing Mcintyre et al have shown different. Their obsession with proving it wrong is bordering on the neurotic.